Jurors listen to series of calls during St. Lucie County murder trial | Twitter

Before a lunch break in the Thomas Barnard trial, jurors heard a series of recorded calls he had with his jailed girlfriend discussing who would confess to murder.

During phone calls placed in January 2011, Barnard's former live-in girlfriend, Michele Lochridge, 41, offered to admit killing attorney Ashley Pollow if he (Barnard) promised to care for her three children.

The couple had lived as a family in Vero Beach and worked for Pollow, 58, a tax attorney, who was found strangled inside a storm bunker Dec. 8, 2010.

Police say on Nov. 28, 2010, Barnard, 35, strangled Pollow before dousing his body with sulfuric acid and disposing of it in an underground shelter.

Lochridge, who was arrested weeks before Barnard for violating the terms of her probation related to a grand theft charge, repeatedly offered to confess to the killing. In the first of several calls she placed from jail, Lochridge told Barnard she would take the fall if he promised to care for her children.

"Please don't say a word," she urged Barnard. "Just let me say what I need to say to keep you and the kids safe."

But by Jan. 27, 2011, Lochridge tells Barnard from jail that sheriff's investigators have evidence that they both killed Pollow and hid his body, and she fears he will be arrested.

"I am being formally charged and so are you," Lochridge tells him.

"Are you serious?" He replies.

"Yeah," she said.

"Oh my God," Barnard said, "Oh my God."

"One of us needs to say that we did it and that we did it on our own without the other person," she insisted. "I mean honestly, are you OK with me going to prison for this ... do you want me to do the time, because one of us is going.

"So you either have to man up, or you are going to have to let me lie," Lochridge continued. "We have to do something because they need one of us."

During a later call. Lochridge asks for details of Pollow's murder in case police interrogate her.

"Let's not talk about that," Barnard replied.

Later that same day, on Jan. 27, 2011, Barnard was arrested for murder at his mother's home in Margate.